Research status of traditional & complementary medicine systems across the world

Despite strong presence of biomedicine, traditional and complementary medicine (T & CM) systems have sustained with their multidimensional connect with people. However, their scientific acceptance and mainstreaming falls short due to inadequacies in research. Also, available reports in this regard scarcely focus on their individuality and present them as a consolidated entity.

The present study was carried out to elucidate individual research status of certain WHO- acknowledged T & CM systems in a customized framework of indirect indicators.

The research status of selected systems was assessed on basis of quantitative indicators viz., research dissemination outcomes concerned with scientific documents and researchers, contribution in COVID-19 prevention and management, and patents profile.

Systems such as Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture fare better than most others. The number of documents in multidisciplinary SCOPUS database was larger than those in PubMed, a healthcare database for almost all systems. Out of 28 lead authors, half belonged to developed countries, viz., USA and Germany. Highest citation count was recorded for TCM (n = 2238). Of the 105 journals analyzed, 40 were not dedicated to specific T & CM system. Most number of discretely dedicated journals (n = 20) mentioned TCM as primary scope. Cochrane systematic reviews (n = 142) and protocols (n = 33) were highest for Acupuncture, while many systems had zero presence. Maximum COVID-19 related clinical studies were registered for TCM (n = 335), followed by Ayurveda (n = 112). TCM related patents were also highest among all.

There is a huge variation in the research status of different T & CM systems. The stakeholders of these systems need to establish a strong evidence base at par with biomedicine. United efforts at global level through organizations such as WHO-Global Traditional Medicine Centre (GTMC) might be helpful in this regard.